


Werifesteria

by N00dle



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Creepy, Crows, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, No Beta, Old Libraries, Original Fiction, Self-Indulgent, Sketches, Suspense, Symbolism, Teeth, Walks In The Woods, We Die Like Men, abandoned house, don't leave unsupervised teenagers explore the cursed forest, grumpy old Lady, oh boy that sure is a weird looking bird haha, or my sorry attempt at it, stupid narrator, the narrator has a potty mouth, what else did you expect from a stupid teenager
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 04:14:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20885951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N00dle/pseuds/N00dle
Summary: WER•IF•EST•ER•I•A(Wurife'sti (Ə) rēa)‘to wander longingly through the forest in search of mystery'_________________The small town had no significant attributes. The only notable thing about it was its Woods, a large forest considered like some kind of living entity by a large part of the population.Being stuck in that place for a few days, a teenager decides to explore the Woods and discover it's secrets.Though, she didn't expect it to be that dangerous...





	Werifesteria

**Author's Note:**

> This story was born out of my need to train some writing, sheer boredom and the desire to do something self-indulgent for once.
> 
> I just wanted to write about all the shit that could happen of I actually did what I wanted to do (e.g. enter an abandoned house, walking aimlessly in the woods) but spicing it up a bit to get it suspense-y.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it.

I'd like to apologize in advance for any weird content you may find while reading this. Also about the length of it. I was barely able to sum everything up with all this lengthy text. The amount of things that I didn't realize that were unsettling until now is almost concerning.

Still, I can assure you that this is real, and it happened almost five years ago, when I visited this city, which is now where I live, for the first time.

It was a little village-like city in Canada's border that I'd have never visited if it wasn't for the fallen barrier on the highway, that got me and my family stranded for a few days in that peculiar place. 

Needless to say, my family hated it. Perhaps it was the slightly unsettling aura the place had, or the weird powdery chunks of something that stuck everywhere in the ground, making them constantly trip. Or even the dense forest that circled the place, and according to the population was almost an entity on its own.

There also was this creepy old lady that no one knew a lot about. No one knew her age or her entire name or why she was the only one who dared explore the woods on her own everyday. Apparently, she collected toilets and wooden lawn gnomes to decorate her house's driveway with.

Whatever was the reason, my parents and my sister favored spending the days at the little hotel instead of doing anything in the city. Me, however, decided that I was going to ask away everything I could from the inhabitants of the city so I could actually go and explore the woods.

The people were very resistant about sharing any information, as if they were afraid of angering something. Perhaps the woods themselves, which they believed to be some kind of living thing. I still got what I needed by the end of the second day. Every unspoken rule about the forest was now of my knowledge. How I was supposed to follow the trails and always carry a knife, always focus in what was in front of me and nothing more. Of how I should _ never _ look back to check from where the rustling came from and _ never,ever _whistle back to the Something around me unless I was completely sure that I was ready to follow it around the dense green belt.

My best bet now was to follow the Old Lady. She went into the woodlands everyday, she certainly knew what she was doing. And even better, she knew how to deal with the things in the forest. The “things that whistled back” or something like that.

So I did it. I waited until the next day, when she got out of her house and into the woods. I followed her through sparse trails, littered with toilets and four foot tall gnomes, lens-less prescription glasses and old porn tapes, cautiously tiptoeing a few feet away from her. Avoiding looking away from the path, towards the never ending faint rustling sounds that would sound from everywhere around us. In my efforts to stick to the rules, that powerful instinctive feeling that seemed to take over anyone that dared to explore the woods got me. And terrifyingly, I ended up losing sight of the Woman.

Panic was the only acceptable thing to do. I didn't know where I was or how to get back, and the rustling was getting louder and the whistling sounded closer and closer each second spent there. Alone, in unknown, unsettling woods while the sun quickly started going down. Even if I managed to find the Woman, how would she react? Probably not in a good way. If I wanted to get back, I'd have to do it myself.

In the midst of my spiraling thoughts, I found something that didn't come from them. A loud, high pitched whistling that seemed to come from somewhere right in front of me. It kind of looked like a small black bird, a crow, perhaps a small raven. Something was… off about it though. 

It's eyes were too focused, too sharp, too… Intelligent. Like it knew I shouldn't be there.

I tried to rationalize it, play it off on my panicking about being all alone in that creepy forest, on being tired of walking around aimlessly. It didn't work. Not a single minute later the bird opened its beak.

It was full of teeth. 

It started to caw sharply and aggressively bare its teeth at whatever was the thing that had been behind me, gradually getting closer, to the point it was basically whistling inside my ears.

I couldn't help but screw my eyes shut, putting my hands onto my ears so the disturbing cacophony would stop.

It did. It seemed that the entire forest went still at the same time. I didn't know what had just happened, but forced myself to open my eyes to peek at whatever was waiting for me.

Dozens of that little bird sat around me in a circle. Perched in trees, sitting by feet, around every single piece of vacant space around me.

Gracelessly tumbling to the leaf covered ground, I noticed a small group of birds forming in front of me, a small flock of around 3 or 4 of them. The way they looked at me sent shivers down my spine.They creepily mimicked smiles, their beaks open and teeth pressed together forcefully, all that while nudging their tiny heads as if pleading me to get closer, to follow them.

My options weren't really the best. Either I could follow those creepily human alike birds into the depths of the forest or be left alone and stranded there with only a small knife to defend myself against the mysterious whistlers that I could already hear creeping in the distance. If the loud, high pitched sounds weren't enough, the shrill scream I swore came from the same direction sure did the job.

* * *

Soon enough I found myself well into the deepest parts of the Forest. The trees grew thicker there; trunks sturdier and foliage fuller, making little to no sunlight available. Not that it was really sunny outside in the first place.

Well, "outside" as in out there, all the way back from the damned _ trees. _And crows. And the whistlers— cursed, cursed creatures.

I wish I could say I wasn't scared, that it wasn't really dangerous and that it was all some silly fear of mine, but it wasn't the case. Trespassing a unknown area with nothing but those crows as guides, poor visibility and occasional rustling, creaking and whistling in the distance; it was definitely getting closer thought.

It appeared as if the birds really weren't enough to keep the whistlers away for long. If they didn't get me to wherever it was I needed to be I was going to be toast— literally. I mean, who knew what the things could do? In my panicked state, I sure didn't.

The birds seemed to perceive my distress, flocking closer to me and guiding me through paths that were slightly more sunlit. In the faint light, I saw a big bird group fly away, some perching in the leaves in far away trees, as if guarding the path; others speeding up and ahead, clearing and indicating a path, spinning together in the horizon, right above a big structure.

We were getting close.

Not really knowing what to expect, I only realized what was the true nature of the building until I was about 30 feet away from it.

A huge, old mansion sat amidst a clearing in the forest. Covered in weeds and dirty, it looked like something straight out of an suspense story. It looked very much abandoned, thought, excluding the lack of any furniture or signs of recent use, it was perfectly usable.

The roof wasn't caved in on itself and there were no signs of vandalism— there was clearly no one nearby to do it. The crows covered every single available perch on the house surface, making it look black from a distance.

That was definitely the right place.

As I approached it, I realized perhaps one of the weirdest things about the building. No, it wasn't the creepy, damaged statues or the wrecked _ something _on the ground. It was what I saw peeking through a window.

Not a single plant grew on the house, like it's so common in such abandoned places. Instead of having the morbid spectacle of nature reclaiming the house little by little, I was greeted with the complete opposite.

Any plant that managed to grow inside became an withering mess. Thought it most likely didn't happen instantly, it still managed to be unnerving.

That didn't stop me though. Whatever was happening inside the house couldn't be as bad as staying out and most likely dying by the hands of those things. Unless it was a giant spider. Or zombies. Or some crazy old person. Oh God, anything but an old creep and I'd be satisfied.

Once inside, I could see the true state of the place. The structure was swarming with old roots, rotting away slowly, leaving giant chasms in the floor and pretty bad (rachaduras) in the base of the walls. Stairs were not to be trusted, as huge patches of old foliage covered unstable flooring and missing steps. All in all, the whole thing was just a huge hazard and the best course of action was evidently wait it out until the things were far away or maybe just calling for help.

Of course the exact opposite was done. Looking around the place for some way to get to the upper floor I found out I had two options. I could try climbing some unstable bricks and dried vines or… well just run up the stairs, praying that the whole thing didn't crumble behind me. I wasn't strong enough to manage climbing so my only option was sprinting my way up.

Maybe half the stairs collapsed in the way up, maybe some frantic screaming could be heard in the woods. There's no telling though, as the only witnesses were dead leaves and a bunch of crows.

* * *

The second floor sported the cleanest surfaces in the entire mansion. Unlike the the ground floor, with it's death-filled rooms, wrecked and flooded kitchen and creepily-dark-stairs-leading-to-a-possible-creepier-basement, it was completely furnished like it would have been when there were people living there. Which was even worse, because if the conserved look meant anything, there was probably someone or _ something _that still lived inside the house.

As I started checking the doors in that never-ending corridor something occurred to me._ Perhaps _the birds wanted me to find that person/thing. _Maybe _they knew what to do about the whistlers…

Soft footsteps all but echoed in the silent hallway behind me. In that moment I noticed how in that short span I spent overthinking the air had _ changed. _ It felt heavy, rancid, _ dead. _The whole day I felt a distant aura of danger, like some predator lurking at a distance. Now, it felt so much worse, like I was nothing more than dead weight, trapped right where the "predator" needed me to be.

Losing it immediately seemed a very reasonable option at that point. In fact, running and screaming, maybe even jumping out of the window and landing right in the middle of the _ things out there _ seemed a delightful idea. There was no logical decision, but maybe the terrifying death that was soon to come could be avoided for a little longer, if I pretended to not have noticed anything. Exploring the rest of the rooms seemed a cool thing to do before I died, considering one of my favorite things to do had always been exploring abandoned places and all that...

Actually, scratch that. It honestly sucked, but there wasn't a lot I could do in the moment. Actually, I didn't really had a choice during the entire day. In fact, only thing I had consciously decided was to enter the damned forest, and look where that had gotten me. 

Maybe, if I was really lucky, whatever lived here wouldn't immediately kill me, so I'd have a few minutes to sketch one of the cooler rooms, make a register of my life-ending adventure. It wasn't like anyone would see it anyway.

Plopping down in one of the last entryways,I started sketching what seemed to have been some kind of office or small library. It was missing a lot of things, like actual books and the once beautiful wooden desk was overturned and very much… wrecked. I didn’t have a lot of time to take it in and draw properly.You see, I heard something approaching.

The steps were getting closer.

I didn't want to die.

But I didn't seem to have a say in the matter anymore, did I?

I could feel a presence getting closer, something cold, and small, and old, _ old, oppressively old, slowly getting to me and oh God I didn't wanna die, I really, really didn't— _

The air shifted slightly behind me, and soon enough the footsteps were distancing again.

What. The. Hell. How come it didn’t see me? It wasn’t like I was making an effort to hide.

It sounded like the thing, person, whatever was heading to the last possible room in that huge corridor. The one I had been avoiding, because I didn’t want to be trapped.And because just like the whole lower floor it had rest of dead plants clinging to every visible part of it, even the doorway and the surrounding walls. 

I knew I should probably use that opportunity to try and escape. The whistles outside had stopped a long time ago, but I had only just noticed. Something told me it was my only chance, but…

I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of creature had such a presence but still chose to live in some old house. Sure, it was a really nice place once, in fact I thought it was still pretty damn cool; but if I was a powerful ancient creature I would probably try to find someplace more...preserved, at least. 

Curiosity got the best of me. I decided just a quick peek wasn’t that dangerous, especially after the thing pointedly ignored me. Running my hands through old plant remains perched in the walls closer to the room, I quickly looked inside it. Now, _ that _ was a real library. 

This one had preserved books hanging in huge, ceiling high ornate wooden racks. The floor was full of dead plants sprouting randomly from spiderweb cracks. The ceiling itself was stupidly high,and had huge skylights in it allowing the pale lighting of the cloudy day to pass through them, barely illuminating the place. I couldn’t see a few corners, too shrouded in darkness to be discernible. That was what doomed me.

Entranced with the beautifully creepy ambient, I didn’t notice the movement until that dreadful feeling from earlier came back at full force. There was something standing in the middle of the room. I couldn’t really tell what, or rather _ who _ it was as I screwed my eyes shut and scurried back to the direction I came from.

Not even two steps back and I tripped in some old roots. _ Stupidstupidstupid, why the hell would it be a good idea to try navigating a irregular terrain with zero visuals to rely on??_

“Are you okay, sweetie?”

_ Oh, Applesauce! It was right in front of me right now. It wasn’t right, oh no. _

Scurrying even further away, I tied opening my eyes, just a little bit...

It couldn't be.

It was the Old Lady, staring at my notebook with grey, steely eyes, that _ definitely _ didn't go with her sickly sweet, condescending voice. Maybe it was just me, or the poor lighting in the abandoned room, perhaps even just trying to see through half lidded, teary eyes did to my perception, but she looked _ wrong. _

Her presence was way too big, not as in tall or fat, just _ imposing, overwhelming _in a way I certainly couldn’t describe later even if I tried.Her face seemed like it was completely shifting every few seconds, which at some point made her face look monstrous to me. Teeth a bit too sharp, cold eyes, maybe more than a single pair. 

The city people did warn me about her. But if they were right about this, maybe they were right about all the rest about her. She knew what to do there, she could help me out of that cursed forest. She did willingly not kill me earlier, so; That was promising. Peeling my eyes open, I took a deep breath and stood up unsteadily.

“Uh, I’m sorry for reacting like this. I just kind of got lost and overwhelmed. But I’m glad I’ve found you. Or rather, you found me. Which is great, because people in the city told me you have a great sense of direction in this forest. They told me to follow you, but I might have gotten lost.”, oh great, I was started to sound crazy.

”And then a bunch of things started following me, they were whistling and very creepy, but a bunch of birds shooed them off. They also brought me here, also I’m sorry about entering like this, but the crows were really insistent and I was pretty scared to be honest…”

The whole time I was speaking, the Old Lady seemed really happy, like me entering her domain was the best thing that ever happened. It all changed when I mentioned the birds. Her entire demeanor changed then. She looked skittish and crazed for a few moments before composing herself again.

“Where did you those _ crows _were?”

“Um, outside..?”,I said, wishing I could say: Just, everywhere, in every available surface on the house.

She paused for a second, looking conflicted. She seemed to shake it off pretty quickly, getting closer to me and putting a bony hand in my shoulder. I couldn’t help but flinch a little. She was as cold as she was dead already, to the point the cold seeped right through my thick hoodie. That was...not great.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?’the Lady said, pushing me toward a smaller, hidden set of stairs.

We went down the stairs quietly. I still didn’t like the woman and her _ weird _aura, but I supposed it was better complying than dying alone in the woods. 

“So, the crows you saw”, She said, looking straight ahead, “Were they just regular birds? Or did you notice anything strange about them?”.

Oh.

“Well, I could be just crazy, but they seemed really smart. Observant, even.”

She hummed, acknowledging me silently. 

“Did you see anything else out of the ordinary?’ she asked.

“Well, there was those Whistler things following me earlier”.

“No, not those. Don’t worry about them. They are just some rowdy birds. But, tell me, did you notice any other unusual things about the crows? Anything at all?”

Okay, that was getting really specific. Why was she so interested in the crows? Sure, they were creepy as hell, but not so noteworthy compared to the other absurdities in the forest.

“Well yeah, but I might have just imagined it, because of the panic and all that jazz…”

“And what might that be?”, she inquired, finally looking at me.

“Well, it looked like... It looked like they had teeth.”

She immediately frowned and looked back straight ahead. I wasn’t sure if she just thought I was going crazy or if he knew something else. Neither option sounded very comforting. I couldn’t help but wonder what was up with them, why she was so interested in them.

We were in another long corridor at the moment. Just how many of those did a house need? Jeez. Something felt wrong though. The Old Lady had sped up and the dreadful feeling was creeping back in. I had to practically run to match her speed. 

As she picked up her pace, I noticed just how desperate the crows outside sounded.

_ Something was wrong. _

The whistling was back in full force.

Okay, I was officially _ losing my shit. _ The whole situation felt like a crappy suspense story and honestly? As much as I wanted to be optimistic, the Lady was _ really _not helping. As far as I knew she could be leading me to a horrifying, gruesome death and I wouldn't be aware of it until we got there.

So.

I must have been too lost on my thoughts, since I ended up bumping right into the Lady, whose back was turned to me, poised unnervingly still in front of a small, mossy door, which had apparently appeared out of thin air.

Well, at least it seemed like she wasn’t going to outright murder me. The small transom window seemed to overlook a open space and we were on the first floor. That _ had _ to be an exit. _ Nothing bad was going to happen after all. _

At least I hoped so. 

That was, until the very same sound that had been plaguing me the entire day started echoing and reverbing inside the corridor.

(And though this was literally the worst moment in my entire life, I can't help but get a bit enthusiastic about it. I do remember it word by word; beat by beat.)

"Uh, ma'am?" I blurted." Can I ask you something?" 

She answered by humming in non committal way.

"Surely, you can hear this, right? The whistling? You did tell me I didn't need to worry, but, you see everyone else told me otherwise. Just how bad are they really? There has to be something you—"

"Didn't tell me?" she finished, unnervingly enough, using the same tone and inflexion as I did; it was literally my own voice answering back. "You see kid, I really hate the perceptive ones. Always getting involved with things they aren't able to understand. No wonder types like you always end up like this".

I could hear the crows outside, absolutely hysterical, almost louder than the whistles.Well, crap. Murder mystery it is.

It probably was just my own startled mind making things worse, utb I could have sworn the whole vestibule felt infinitely colder right thereafter. The whistling seemed to shift slowly until it sounded more like nails on chalkboard than anything else. And that wasn’t even the worst thing happening.

The Lady had been completely still as the quick shift occurred. I couldn’t say that it didn’t make me nervous. If she wasn’t the main problem here, who could tell what was lurking outside?

It wasn’t long until I found out. The scratching and and whining coming from everywhere had stopped abruptly, only to be substituted by uncomfortably close breathing that smelt sickly sweet and felt heavy against the back of my neck.

_ She _ finally turned back. 

I expected a monologue about my stupidness, maybe even a half-hearted, sarcastic lecture to come out 

Met with the same cloying smell as the Whistlers,I barely had a second to take in what I saw before the creature lunged forward.

The only thing human about that _ thing _ were its eyes. They were still the same as before, that much was clear. Even though she couldn’t be taller than my chest, she seemed to fill up the entire foyer with her presence alone. And God, it had _ so many teeth. Too many. _ Just like the crows.

It felt like a cruel joke. 

My memories from this point forward are honestly a bit blurry. I remember feeling completely detached from the situation, as if I was only a spectator in the play my body was a part of. I vaguely recall the sound of breaking glass and aggressive caws, a flurry of movement coming from all directions and_ blood _ . _ Green _, inside the house; red in my hands and knees after jumping out a broken window and running desperately across the forest, a distorted mess of sound right at my heels.

What I’m sure of is that I never looked back, nor I questioned where the crows were guiding me or if they could lead me to safety after all.

* * *

My arrival back to the hotel, panicked and bloodied didn’t surprise anyone but my parents, that were quick to pack everything and leave. The road had been funcional for _ days, _it seemed. 

How come I didn’t notice the absurd passing of time during my little adventure was beyond me. Not a single soul seemed to have noticed my long absence, either. It was as if everyone had their memories wiped clean or something.

We left the next morning.

* * *

For the longest time, I forgot completely about this whole situation. Perhaps my brain decided that it was too traumatic for me and tried to repress it or whatever.

The thing is, I remembered it somehow, only a few months away from effectively accomplishing my life long dream of living in Canada.

Imagine my surprise when I actually managed to get a place in that city. It was like the city was waiting for me.

The first thing I decided to do as a newcomer was to try to dig up around to see if anyone knew anything about the five year old incident with the Lady.

In the end, I kind of wish I'd never asked anything. It would have been better than all those sideways looks and worried answers.

No one had seen the Lady I talked about, never heard anything about her and didn't recall anyone like her in the entire city. 

It was as if she had never existed.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh so that's something, I guess.  
Review or something, because I'm willing to write more if anyone is interested. Also it's great to receive feedback.
> 
> It's worth mentioning that I wrote a good chunk of this while blasting 8D audio crab rave in my headphones.


End file.
